“You’ve ruined our family!” my daughter screamed.
My daughter, Emily, blames me for her divorce, and her words cut through me like a knife. She thinks I didn’t give her and her husband the right conditions for a happy life. It all started with their fight over the mortgage—even though I begged them not to rush into it. Now I’m the one being blamed for all their troubles, and the guilt won’t leave me alone.
Emily and her husband, James, got married three years ago. She wanted a lavish wedding—hundreds of guests, a limo, the whole works. I asked her to be more sensible, but her mother-in-law, Margaret, wouldn’t hear it. “For my only son, I’ll throw a party all of Manchester will remember!” So I emptied my savings just to keep up appearances. I warned Emily there’d be no gift from me—I’d spent my last penny on their big day. Even now, it makes me shudder, thinking how much we wasted on a single night that feels so meaningless now.
After the wedding, they rented a flat. I kept quiet, even though I knew they were just throwing money away. They wanted their independence, but the excitement wore off after a year. Renting turned out to be way too expensive.
When James’s gran passed, she left him an old one-bed flat on the outskirts of town—run-down, peeling walls, but livable. Legally, it was still his mum’s place, but she let them move in. They decided to fix it up. I tried to talk Emily out of it: “Why pour money into a place that isn’t even yours? If things go wrong, you’ll end up with nothing!” But she wouldn’t listen.
I only visited that flat once—for their housewarming. The neighbourhood was grim, an hour from the city centre, the yard overgrown with weeds, and the neighbours looked like life had knocked the spirit out of them. The kitchen was tiny—you couldn’t even move around in it. But Emily and James were beaming with happiness, so I bit my tongue.
A year later, Emily told me she was pregnant. That cramped little flat was no place for a baby. James asked his mum to sell it to help with the mortgage, but she flat-out refused. They took out the loan anyway. I begged them to wait: “Emily, how are you going to pay a mortgage on maternity leave? You’ve got a roof over your heads—why make life harder?” But my words might as well have been spoken to the wind.
Then Margaret suggested another plan—swapping homes. I’d move into their dingy little flat, and they’d take my three-bed house in the city centre. I said no. Live in some run-down shoebox on the wrong side of town? No thanks. My home is my sanctuary; I’ve worked hard for it. Why give it up for a place where even the windows face a rubbish heap?
Emily held onto that grudge. She and James went ahead with the mortgage on a fixer-upper. But when their daughter, Lily, was born, James’s entire salary went straight to the loan. They struggled to afford food. My husband and I helped where we could, but we’re not made of money. I kept saying, “You made this choice—now you have to deal with it.” Maybe it was harsh, but what else could I do?
Then Emily came back to me, holding Lily, and shattered my heart: “This is all your fault! If you hadn’t been so stubborn, James and I would still be together! Lily’s growing up without a father, and I’ve lost my husband! If you’d just swapped homes, everything would’ve been different!” She screamed, she cried, and I just stood there, frozen, unable to say a word.
It kills me that their family fell apart. But is it really my fault? I was just trying to protect what’s mine, to give them good advice. Or was I wrong? What would you have done in my place?
